Radio New Zealand

Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier says he and his fellow judges welcome the Government's plan to review the way the Family Court operates.

The review, approved by Cabinet in April, will focus on improving the court and ensuring its processes are straightforward and meet the needs of vulnerable people, particularly children.

In his first public response to the review, Judge Boshier told a Law Society dinner that by getting the process as right as possible, the system gave the children whose cases it had to resolve the best chance of growing up to be functional young people and then functional adults.

"If we don't get it right," he said, "other more expensive courts have to deal with the consequences."

Judge Boshier called for the inquisitorial rather than the adversarial approach to handling disputes to be extended to cases involving children's welfare.

Once the review is done, he said, the Government must be committed to seeing through any reforms.